The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories eBook

Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness?
At once we think of kings and aristocracies, and
of world-wide celebrities in soldierships, the arts,
letters, etc., and we stop there. But that
is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives
its homage on every round of the ladder, from the
emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction,
also, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands
its due of deference and envy.

To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued
privilege of all the human race, and it is freely
and joyfully exercised in democracies as well as in
monarchies—­and even, to some extent, among
those creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower
Animals. For even they have some poor little
vanities and foibles, though in this matter they are
paupers as compared to us.

A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred
millions of subjects, but the rest of the world is
indifferent to him. A Christian Emperor has the
worship of his subjects and of a large part of the
Christian world outside of his domains; but he is
a matter of indifference to all China. A king,
class A, has an extensive worship; a king, class B,
has a less extensive worship; class C, class D, class
E get a steadily diminishing share of worship; class
L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and
class W (half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all
outside their own little patch of sovereignty.

Take the distinguished people along down. Each
has his group of homage-payers. In the navy,
there are many groups; they start with the Secretary
and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster
—­and below; for there will be groups among
the sailors, and each of these groups will have a
tar who is distinguished for his battles, or his strength,
or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired and
envied by his group. The same with the army;
the same with the literary and journalistic craft;
the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard
Oil; U. S. Steel; the class A hotel —­and
the rest of the alphabet in that line; the class A
prize-fighter —­and the rest of the alphabet
in his line—­clear down to the lowest and
obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with its one
boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king
of Samoa, bottom of the royal race, but looked up
to with a most ardent admiration and envy.

There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty,
about this human race’s fondness for contact
with power and distinction, and for the reflected
glory it gets out of it. The king, class A,
is happy in the state banquet and the military show
which the emperor provides for him, and he goes home
and gathers the queen and the princelings around him
in the privacy of the spare room, and tells them all
about it, and says:

“His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder
in the most friendly way—­just as friendly
and familiar, oh, you can’t imagine it! —­and
everybody seeing him do it; charming, perfectly
charming!”